A mother-of-three has branded Poole Borough Council "ludicrous and completely outrageous" as she took the authority to court for using controversial powers to spy on her family.

Parents are to lose the right to withdraw their child from sex education classes when the youngster reaches 15, the Schools Secretary announced today.

A Conservative Government would make it harder to become a teacher by raising entry requirements for the profession, the party's education spokesman Michael Gove declared tonight.

The letter of the day will be "H" as in "hug" or "hungry" or even "happy birthday." The number of the day will be "40," the exact length of time, in years, that it has been on air. The programme reaching this milestone is, of course, Sesame Street.

Exam boards should face fines if they fail to stick to guidelines on standards, the head of the Royal Society of Chemistry said today.

Black and minority ethnic teachers face an "endemic culture of institutional racism" in schools, research found today.